President Donald Trump stated Friday he’ll ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to many different high-profile figures, in a unprecedented step that comes simply days after Democrats launched emails from the late Epstein that point out him.
Trump introduced the directive in a Truth Social put up that accused Democrats of making an attempt to revive consideration to his previous ties with Epstein, contending they’re “using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures.”
“I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,” Trump wrote.
Bondi in a while Friday confirmed she would launch the investigation on Trump’s orders, assigning Jay Clayton, the highest prosecutor in New York’s southern district, to lead the federal probe.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” she wrote in a post on X that included a screenshot of Trump’s request.
Earlier this 12 months, after Bondi ordered the FBI to assessment Epstein recordsdata for launch, Justice and FBI officers carried out one other evaluation and decided there have been no extra prosecutions that might be introduced based mostly on the proof at hand, in accordance to regulation enforcement officers.
But Trump’s transfer on Friday represents the president’s most vital effort but to discredit the push by Democrats and a few Republicans to launch all of the Epstein case recordsdata. And it serves as the newest instance of the president’s perception that he can defuse the problem by sheer drive of will, regardless of deepening fears amongst allies that his actions are solely additional amplifying it whereas damaging his personal credibility.
“Why doesn’t he just release these? Just release them!” conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly stated of the Epstein recordsdata throughout her present on Wednesday. “Now he’s in a position of being, like, singled out as the only one, allegedly, as opposed to one of a slew of names.”
In a lengthy thread on X, Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, blasted Trump’s directive and referred to as on the administration to launch all of the Epstein recordsdata.
“The call for an investigation is an obvious ploy to avoid releasing the files. Simply release all the files, and expose the people who had both deep and ongoing relationships with Epstein,” he wrote, including later, “I refuse to bend the knee to Donald Trump and his slanderous lies.”
A spokesman for Clinton said on X: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.”
NCS has reached out to Summers for remark about Trump’s calls for for an investigation.
In an announcement, JPMorgan Chase spokesperson Patricia Wexler stated the financial institution “ended our relationship with (Epstein) years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges.”
“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” Wexler stated. “We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”
Trump earlier this week tried and failed to persuade Republicans to block a discharge petition within the US House forcing a vote on the discharge of the Justice Department’s Epstein recordsdata, with the White House even holding a Situation Room assembly with one key GOP lawmaker who had signed on forward of it receiving its decisive 218th signature.
Officials throughout that assembly argued that the administration was not hiding something, in accordance to a senior White House official, together with displaying GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert some paperwork obtained by the House Oversight Committee that had not but been launched. Trump appeared to acknowledge Friday that was half of a bid by his administration to dissuade her from driving extra dialog on Epstein.
“When you talk about the Epstein hoax, what happens is, you’re not talking about how well we’ve done,” Trump added whereas talking aboard Air Force One. “That’s the whole purpose behind them. They want to waste people’s time and some of the dumber Republicans like that, but it’s mostly Democrats, by the way.”
But they may not change her thoughts.
Speaker Mike Johnson now plans to schedule a vote on releasing the Epstein recordsdata subsequent week, in a strategic shift spurred by the conclusion that it couldn’t be stopped. The vote is anticipated to appeal to important help from rank-and-file GOP lawmakers.
But the newly introduced felony investigation might give the Justice Department a brand new justification to resist turning over recordsdata — or persuade some lawmakers to again off. Generally, the division resists giving Congress recordsdata throughout an ongoing felony investigation as a result of any public launch might jeopardize the integrity of the probe or any ensuing felony case.
“This will certainly give members of Congress a basis on which to vote against disclosing the Epstein files,” NCS authorized analyst Elie Honig stated. “If there’s an ongoing criminal investigation, that’s a perfectly good reason for Congress to back off or to vote no.”
The White House’s method to the Epstein case and its subsequent fallout has perplexed even some administration officers and Trump allies, some of whom have been telling him and his advisers to change technique for months.
In latest days, at the very least one ally on Capitol Hill straight instructed Trump that he was getting dangerous recommendation on his method to the Epstein case by persevering with to delay and downplay it, a supply aware of the matter instructed NCS.
“These people have no idea what advice the president is getting,” one other senior White House official stated.
Addressing the controversy Friday night time, Trump instructed reporters he and Epstein had “a very bad relationship for years,” and sought to flip the main focus to these he had demanded face investigation.
“Larry Summers, whatever his name is, and all of the other people that he spent time with, Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years. But he also saw strength, because I was president, so he dictated a couple of memos to himself. Give me a break. You’re gonna find out what did he know, with respect to Bill Clinton, with respect to the head of Harvard, with respect to all of those people that he knew, including JP Morgan Chase,” Trump stated.
The first senior White House official pushed again on the concept the White House had been caught flat footed, noting that the administration, whereas conscious of the emails launched earlier this week, deliberately didn’t need to insert Epstein again into the information cycle. Asked concerning the message to the president from that congressional ally, a White House spokesperson reiterated that the emails “prove literally nothing” and pivoted to attacking Democrats for making an attempt to use the Epstein “hoax” to distract from the shutdown.
Multiple different sources instructed NCS that Trump himself has dictated the administration’s response to Epstein-related developments, particularly opposing any actions that threat pushing the storyline ahead.
“Trump doesn’t want his people to get ahead of it. Everybody has been instructed to wait until information comes out and then respond that it is a hoax or doesn’t prove anything,” one of the sources stated.
In the 24 hours after the House Oversight Committee’s Wednesday launch of emails Epstein wrote that talked about Trump by title, Trump had declined to take questions from the press. Trump didn’t obtain or ship any of the messages, which largely predate his time as president, and he has not been accused of any felony wrongdoing in reference to Epstein.
But on Friday, Trump once more vented his frustration over the state of affairs in a sequence of Truth Social posts, blasting Republicans backing the Epstein recordsdata launch as “soft and foolish” and repeatedly branding the problem a “Hoax.” He then took questions from reporters whereas flying to Mar-a-Lago.
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Trump wrote in a single put up.
He introduced his demand for a Justice Department investigation into “many other people and institutions” in a subsequent Truth Social put up.
In 1000’s of emails reviewed by NCS, Epstein corresponded with a large group of highly effective and influential individuals, together with outstanding Democrats.
Among his most frequent communications have been with former Obama White House chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, who represented Epstein as his lawyer, and Summers, the previous Clinton Treasury secretary and Obama National Economic Council director. (Corresponding with Epstein wouldn’t be against the law, and there’s no proof within the emails that any of them participated in Epstein’s wrongdoing.)
Clinton and Epstein had been pleasant within the early 2000s, with the previous president showing on Epstein’s personal jet logs at the very least 16 occasions between 2002 and 2003 for journeys he stated have been associated to Clinton Foundation work. Clinton would later write that his relationship with Epstein had ended by 2003 earlier than he was conscious of the financier’s crimes. Clinton has by no means been accused by regulation enforcement of any wrongdoing associated to Epstein.
JPMorgan paid $290 million in 2023 to settle a category motion lawsuit filed by Epstein’s survivors that alleged it turned a blind eye to uncommon money transactions that they claimed enabled Epstein’s intercourse trafficking. JPMorgan additionally paid $75 million to settle with the US Virgin Islands. The financial institution didn’t admit or deny any wrongdoing in both settlement.
NCS’s Kara Scannell, Kit Maher, Evan Perez and Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
This story has been up to date with extra reporting.
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